Rise of the Argonauts Review - Xbox Gaming in South Africa

With the release of the movie 300 a while back it was proven that Greek mythology can still sell well in this day and age. Rise of the Argonauts is a game by Liquid Entertainment that features all the mythos and backstory prevalent in Greece but with none of the grandiose visuals or the ability to get your blood pumping. Upon loading up RoA you begin the game seeing how your character's wife Alceme is assassinated by a clan of mystics known as the Blacktongues. Overcome with remorse over the loss of his wife, Jason decides to begin a mission to bring her back to life and so he travels to the Oracle of Delphi where he learns that the only way to accomplish this is to gain possession of the Golden Fleece of legend. From here your journey as Jason begins as you set sail with a band of heroes on the Argonauts' ship to restore your beloved's life.

I had a hard time coming to like my time with Rise of the Argonauts as its mixture of RPG and action never seems deep enough to let you become engrossed in its intricacies, while at the same time not being easy to use with reams of menus and systems for the four gods helping you on your way. Liquid Entertainment would have been better served trying to concentrate on one of these aspects rather than trying to give gamers a little bit of everything. As a result of this we end up with a game that's a jack of all trades but a master of none. Rise of the Argonauts seems intent on bringing us all the disadvantages from each of its disparate parts, with the long winded conversations of a RPG melded together with a button mashing combat system that rewards grinding levels rather than any form of skill. Add in a story that manages to take a rich and cultured tale of ancient legends and gods, and deconstruct it to a pitiful reflection of itself and you don't have the makings of a Game of the Year contender here. Though the above points paint a bleak and hopeless picture there are some bright lights that manage to brighten this otherwise dark and dreary game. One of those is the stellar musical score that accompanies the game that has been composed by Tyler Bates - responsible for the excellent 300 soundtrack. As you journey through the ancient lands of Greece you'll be accompanied by some great tracks that are almost carbon copies of the 300 soundtrack and yet do not sound as though they merely decided to buy a copy of the CD and reuse it.

While your ears might be in for a treat, your eyes will be nearly blind from tears due to the unbelievably bland graphics. Upon looking at this game you'd have a hard time believing that its using the same Unreal engine powering such graphical masterpieces as Gears of War 2 or Mass Effect. The textures look flatter than a pancake and the character models look like they were taken straight from a Mannequins R Us catalogue. The environments you trudge through on your journeys are also remarkably bland and would seem to point to Greece being a land of cardboard cutout trees and lego brick mountains. If you manage to not find the game's looks hideous you're greeted by a most depressing gameplay mechanic whereupon you run from place A to place B to perform some action. Usually these are the RPG staples of “take this package to this person” or “beat up this person” - and here I was thinking that as you're a king, Jason would rather involve himself with epic missions and daring deeds.

The RPG elements of Rise of the Argonauts come into play when you enter the game's menus to buff up your character. Here you can choose to dedicate your deeds to one of the four gods: Ares, Hermes, Apollo or Athena. Each god has certain advantages which suit different playstyles and bestow powers which you can purchase for your character to aid them in battle. That's unfortunately the entire scope of the RPG system. At no point can you influence the development of your character, and Rise of the Argonauts seems to be more action orientated than hardcore RPG fans might like. The one RPG aspect that shows itself in abundance in the game is the use of dialogue and character interaction to progress in the story. Unfortunately the story is not compelling in any sense of the word and the dialogue is so frequent you'll soon come to love the A button to skip conversations altogether. In my first few hours with the game I probably fought a total of 4 times with each fight lasting 5 minutes. The rest of the time I was staring at some character's head listening to them prattling on about the mundaneness of their day to day lives and demanding that Jason help them with tasks no where near befitting my stature as a king. Rise of the Argonauts also shamelessly rips off the dialogue wheel from Mass Effect but with the crucial difference in that here your choices have no real discernible effect other than gaining you some small favour with one of the gods. Rather than letting you work out which response gains you favour with which god, you are shown a giant icon telling you which answer will gain favour with which god. It's a pointless addition and removes some of the thinking and roleplaying from the game.

On the action side of things Rise of the Argonauts fares a little better with a combat system that would seem to hold plenty of depth, but on closer inspection is as shallow as a puddle on a hot day. Jason has 3 weapons at his disposal: the sword, the mace and the spear with each of these being suited to specific situations. Furthermore, Jason can swap weapons in the middle of a combo and he also has powerful special moves which are weapon specific. This is all well and good, but when you're facing identical enemies all requiring the same mind numbing approach to defeat them you'd surely be better off trying to get through a wall by bashing your head against it.

It's at this point that you slowly come to realise that every minute you play Rise of the Argonauts is a minute that would be better spent doing something more enjoyable, such as watching paint dry. Probably the saddest thing about this game is that I enjoyed Too Human far more than I ever enjoyed Rise of the Argonauts. Your money is better spent elsewhere and if you see Rise of the Argonauts you should steer well clear even if it hits the bottom of the bargain bin.

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